Max Rashbrooke 
Just-released pre-pandemic stats show that rises in disposable income have been matched by skyrocketing housing costs. And that poses a conundrum for the prime minister, writes Max Rashbrooke. Jacinda Ardern’s critics, who see her as unable to solve the housing crisis or make meaningful progress on tackling poverty, will be emboldened by yesterday’s release of … Read more
Jacinda Ardern rules supreme over the New Zealand political landscape, possessed of the first outright majority of the MMP era and immense personal popularity. But what should be her most urgent political priorities this term? In compiling the list below, I have left out the task of conquering covid-19 – almost too obvious to mention, … Read more
Rebuilding and healing broken communities can be a slow and frustrating process. But as Max Rashbrooke writes, it starts with listening to the powerful stories of those with lived experience. Just before lockdown, in Porirua’s Te Rauparaha Arena, a reversal of fortunes took place. At the People’s Voices conference, organised by Wesley Community Action, the … Read more
There’s more to the finance minister’s controversial move than meets the eye, argues Max Rashbrooke. If you’re a current beneficiary, I can see how it looks like a slap in the face. Finance minister Grant Robertson yesterday announced that people rendered unemployed by the coronavirus will receive a 12-week benefit of $490 a week, nearly … Read more
Max Rashbrooke makes the case for reforms based on the democratic principle that we should each have the same influence over politics. We could do worse than starting by looking at Canada, he argues. The Money Talks series explores the rot in our donations system and ideas to fix it. It is made possible thanks to … Read more
We live, supposedly, in the most open era in New Zealand history. Yet right now scandal swirls around donations to National and New Zealand First. The other large party, Labour, also has form. As part of our week-long series on electoral funding, Money Talks, Max Rashbrooke asks: how has it come to this? This series … Read more
New research encourages ‘interventions’ – things like programmes aimed at helping poorer families to ‘be better parents’ – without addressing substantially issues of poverty, and it’s a bit like trying to prop up a crumbling brick wall with a piece of four-by-two, writes Max Rashbrooke. Imagine a team of explorers who, searching for the source … Read more
As we approach the end of what Jacinda Ardern called the ‘year of delivery’, and with the next election a year away, Max Rashbrooke examines the state of play with the government’s critical working groups. This research and feature exists thanks to contributions from Spinoff members. To help us produce more quality, public interest journalism … Read more
Despite the bitter disappointment of those who backed capital gains tax for a win, it’s not the only horse in the wealth tax race. Max Rashbrooke studies the form guide. If the capital gains tax were a horse, Jacinda Ardern’s announcement earlier this month was the final nobbling of an equine that, despite praise from … Read more
After tax, the next cab off the working-group rank is welfare. The Universal Basic Income has been the hottest new idea of recent years, but Max Rashbrooke reckons that just doesn’t add up, and there’s another, stronger option The New Zealand Initiative and Sue Bradford make strange bedfellows: normally there is not much that unites … Read more
As the Labour-led government approaches its first birthday, Max Rashbrooke attempts to divine whether there is a coherent ideological direction In a speech delivered in January this year, Jacinda Ardern promised to explain the “why” that motivates her government. This sounded exciting: a chance to understand her core reasons for entering politics and the basis … Read more
Prime Minister Bill English made an unexpected commitment last night to cut the number of kids living in poverty by 50,000 over the next three years, and another 50,000 in the three years following. What exactly does he mean by that, asks Max Rashbrooke – and could his plan ever even work? When Bill English … Read more
What’s the best response to the threat to political norms – and, some say, to democracy itself – posed by President Donald Trump? According to the NZ-born, New York-based political philosopher Jeremy Waldron, it’s civility, reason and restraint. Max Rashbrooke talked to him during a recent visit back home. If the world is going to … Read more
It is well-known that poverty and inequality have soared under National. Well-known – and unsupported by the evidence. What matters is at the extremities, writes Max Rashbrooke Yesterday’s Household Incomes Report, the annual record of inequality in New Zealand, is a confronting read for those who think everything is getting worse. Take the figures for … Read more
New Zealand’s greatest reality show doesn’t only offer a window into the lives of the rich and shameless, says Max Rashbrooke. It’s also a perfect distillation of how the country’s wealth is increasingly being concentrated at the top. In the first episode of Real Housewives of Auckland, Louise Wallace introduces herself with the immortal line, … Read more
Discussion around inequality tends to have been dominated by what people earn. Now the debate is turning to the question of wealth, writes Max Rashbrooke in the introduction to his new short book in the Bridget Williams Books BWB Texts series, Wealth and New Zealand. Imagine a river that, running faster or slower as the … Read more